Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) Program Offers Free Tax Preparation To Cleveland And Bradley County Citizens

Tuesday, January 29, 2013
- by Tonya Brantley

Joseph Kotsis addressed the Cleveland City Council Monday afternoon to announce the opening of the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program. He said, “The City of Cleveland is proud to be a partner once again with the Internal Revenue Service in offering free tax preparation service to citizens of Cleveland and Bradley County whose household income is $51,000 or below.”

“This is the sixth year we have offered these services. This year, we have four sites. Our main VITA satellite site will be at South Cleveland Community Center located at 1334 South Church Street N.E. Other satellite locations are Bradley Baptist Association, Kmart and Lee University. The opening date for free tax preparation at the South Cleveland Community Center site is Feb. 2. This year we have expanded our service and also outreached to help those at Whirlpool and Flowers Bakery. This program only works because of our volunteers.”

The free VITA tax preparation schedule is Tuesday, from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Wednesday, from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

In other business, City Mayor Tom Rowland introduced the new City Planner, Corey Divel. Mr. Divel was formerly the planner for Bradley County for the past 7½ years.

The only item on the consent agenda was a resolution to accept a 2012 tax refund to Little Caesars ($404).

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